20081219

Denial of the Fittest

by Kristen Tsetsi

You take five people and you put them out by a high wall with a shovel, tell them there's no escape, even with the shovels, and then have them test the walls, the ground, so they see. You put two other people out there who come at them one step every ten minutes, and you tell the five at the wall that those two people, when they reach them, will shoot them in the head - certain death. What do you think those five'll do? You think they'll ask to be killed straight away to avoid the wait? No... they'll take that time, that last bit of life, to try to find a way out. They'll use those shovels to dig.

What a fantastic way to express the dignity of human life and the desire to see one's life to its end. When the pressure is on, people are capable of incredible things, even escaping an inescapable place does not seem impossible.